The end of the plastic shopping bag could be near as cities and provinces across the world implement bans on the non-biodegradable carriers. The latest to join the ban has been the Buenos Aires province in Argentina, reports the local media. The province is independent of the city of Buenos Aires.

While other areas of Argentina are banning plastic bags, they are not the only ones trying to stop the bags from ending up in landfills and polluting rivers and oceans. Cities in China, England and the United States have also banned non-biodegradable plastic bags.

In the U.S. both San Francisco and Oakland California have banned large retailers from carrying non-biodegradable plastic bags, while other cities, like Austin, Texas, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and Boston, Massachusetts, considered banning them but decided to create recycling programs instead.

Many retailers, such as the Kroger family grocery stores, give a couple of cents in bag refunds for every bag customers reuse. Others, like Whole Foods Market, have also stopped offering plastic bags to their customers altogether and are instead giving their customers paper bags and refunds for reusing any kind of bag.